Discover ITC: India’s Most Luxurious and Eco-Friendly Hotels ⇒ Unfortunately, India has six of the ten most polluted cities in the world, but luckily ITC Hotels is trying to change that. Sustainability has always been a challenge for luxury hotels but, slowly, sustainable designs have been emerging more and more. For the Indian five-star hotel chain, being eco-friendly has become the company’s operation mode.

ITC Hotels set an unprecedented benchmark when its 11 luxury hotels all became certified LEED Platinum, a process that included retrofitting nine properties. Today, the company is India’s second-largest hotel chain, with more than 90 hotels throughout the country, and the only company in the world of its size to have been carbon positive for 13 years, water positive for 16 years, and solid waste recycling positive for 11 years—all in one of the world’s most polluted countries.

In May, the company opened its newest hotel in Hyderabad, ITC Kohenur, which uses high-tech green initiatives like 100% LED lighting, a green roof, and a unique building structure that captures maximum sunlight, but also guest-facing improvements like Vitamin C–infused showers and plants in every room to improve air quality.

These are just a few of the sustainable initiatives that ITC incorporates into its luxury hotels, according to Dipak Haksar, the company’s chief executive. The company has a “Responsible Luxury” mission, trying to combat the challenges ITC faces in India and the future of sustainability and luxury travel.

“The conscious consumer is looking to contribute by endorsing luxury brands that are eco-friendly. In the context of luxury hotels, it takes on the challenge of making luxury more meaningful with deeper roots in society and the environment,” says Dipak Haksar. “By 2030, the hospitality landscape will be unrecognizable compared to the standards of today, and sustainability will be one of the pervasive drivers of change. And those who fail to adhere to these changes in the industry find the risk of getting lost.”